


This Is Easy

by Cottontail



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-17
Updated: 2011-04-17
Packaged: 2017-10-18 06:13:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/185865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cottontail/pseuds/Cottontail
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve agrees to drive Grace to school one morning and they share some quality time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Is Easy

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to girlnamedpixley for the beta. [Also posted over here on LJ.](http://cottontail.livejournal.com/425012.html)

Steve doesn’t have a lot of experience with kids. Not by any purposeful intention on his part. Just hazard of the career he’s chosen. Not many chances to interact with them one-on-one in the middle of armed conflict or top secret operations.

Now he has to learn the ropes, and quick, because Danny has Grace, and she’s the center of his world. If Steve wants to remain part of that world he needs to brush up on his kid skills. He’s spent time with her before, but always with Danny refereeing any awkward silences or stilted conversation.

It’s been a slow work in progress. Not rapid and burning bright, like he has with Danny. He needs alone time with her, away from Danny. But the opportunity hasn’t presented itself, until now.

Danny comes down the stairs Monday morning, scowling at his cell phone. He and Grace spent the weekend at Steve’s. It’s the first step in his secret plot to get Danny to move in with him.

“What’s up?” he asks, pouring orange juice into three glasses, and tossing some bagels into the toaster.

“I have that meeting with the DA this morning. They pushed it up an hour.”

“So?” He grabs the cream cheese out of the fridge and tosses it on the counter beside the toaster, along with a knife.

Grace races down the stairs and slides to a stop in the kitchen, directly in front of Danny. Her school uniform is perfect, but her hair still screams bed head. She holds a hair band up to him.

“So?” Danny repeats back to Steve. He holds his hands out, like Steve must be crazy blind not to have jumped to the obvious conclusion.

Steve blinks. Of course Danny is going to explain it to him. Sometimes Steve puts on clueless face when he doesn’t need to. It often provides entertaining results with many hand gestures and interesting words or phrases.

“So my kid has to be at school in twenty minutes. That’s what.” Danny accepts the sparkly rainbow hair thing from his daughter, pulls her long hair back, running fingers through to untangle the worst of it, and then wraps it up expertly into a bun on her head. All in one fluid motion that must have taken years of practice.

Grace stares up between them. She’s an unusually quiet kid, considering how loud her father is.

“Okay, Steve,” Danny continues, a distracting grin on his face. “This is where you say, ‘Oh hey, babe, no problem. I’ll drop her off at school this morning.’ See this is how relationships work. Give, take, share responsibility. That sort of thing, you know?”

Steve blinks once more and takes a long gulp of juice while Danny stands there, hands held out again, waiting for a response. Taunting Danny is always good sport.

Danny squints at him. “Seriously? You’re not going to say anything here?”

Grace reaches up to the counter, taking her glass of juice and gulping it down.

“Danny, of course I’m going to take her for you. Why wouldn’t I? Gracie, you want to take a ride with me this morning?”

She nods, eyes large. “Mhmm.”

“Cool.”

Danny lets his hands drop to his sides.

“Okay. Great. Now, you be good. Take care of Steve, don’t let him run any lights or turn the sirens on or go off-roading or anything.”

The bagels pop up from the toaster.

“There’s no off-road terrain between here and the school.” Steve points out.

“Thank God.” Danny reaches around him for a bagel, spreading it generously with cream cheese and giving Steve a quick kiss. “No stunt driving. You got that?” He nods towards Grace. “Precious cargo. Just remember that.”

“Danny, the school is ten minutes away. I think we’ll get there in one piece. Relax. Have fun with the DA.”

Danny gives a great put-upon sigh. He hugs Grace goodbye, grabs his keys from the table by the door, and leaves.

Grace finishes her juice, placing the glass back up on the countertop and wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

“You want a bagel?”

She nods. “But school starts soon.”

“Not a problem. You can take it with you.” He spreads it with cream and pulls out a half dozen paper towels for her. The neat freak in him already anticipating the cream cheese fingerprints all over the cab of his truck.

Okay. This is not a big deal. He can handle this.

She shoulders her backpack; the one that seems entirely too adult for a little girl her size. Steve grabs his wallet and keys from the table.

He has to hold the bagel and paper towels and backpack while she climbs into the passenger seat of the truck. She’s dwarfed in the seat and pulls the seatbelt over, clicking it into place. Steve places the pack on the floor and she rests her feet on it. He hands her the bagel wrapped up in many paper towels, and she’s precise and careful in the handling of it, making sure not to get anything on her school uniform. He smiles at her and she smiles back.

That’s when he knows this will be easy.

She nibbles on her bagel for the first five minutes. They listen to the morning news on the radio. She’s quiet and composed beside him. Steve begins to wonder if she’s Danny’s biological child.

She seems interested in the truck and being up so high. Like she hasn’t been in one before. She stretches her neck and peers out the passenger window when they stop at a light.

“Steve, there’s a dog in the car next to us. I can see from up here! “

“Oh, yeah?” He smiles fondly, glancing over at the car. It’s a black lab, hanging it’s head out the back window, tongue lolling and tail wagging.

Grace is all smiles as she watches. Steve rolls the window down so she can get a better view. She waves at it and says, “Good morning.” It barks. The light turns green.

She sits back, the smile still on her face. He racks his brain for a topic to discuss that will keep it there.

“You like dogs?”

“Yes,” Grace replies, picking a small bite-size piece from her bagel and placing it in her mouth. “We had a dog in New Jersey. Mommy had a Shih Tzu.” She pronounces the breed perfectly, with just the hint of her mother’s accent to it. He grins to himself.

“And it couldn’t come to Hawaii with you?”

“No,” Grace shakes her head. She tries to make herself taller so she can see out the windshield, but gives up after a few tries and sits heavily back on the seat. Steve makes a mental note to buy a booster seat for her, for future trips. “Daddy got mad when it pooped in the house too many times and we had to give it away to my aunt.”

“Oh.” Danny’s never mentioned having a dog when he was with Rachel. They must not have had it long.

They drive a few blocks in silence while Steve searches for another topic.

“What about Mr. Hoppy? You still have him?”

Grace becomes suddenly still, staring down at the last half of bagel on the paper towels in her lap. Large brown eyes glance over at him then back to her lap. “I have to tell you a secret,” she whispers.

Something makes Steve slow the truck down, he leans a little towards her, inviting. “Oh yeah?”

“Mr. Hoppy ran away.” Her eyes are perfect circles as she watches him for reaction. Like she expects disapproval.

“Did he? How come? Did he get out?”

She nods, looking serious and guilty.

He decides not to press for details. “Well… You know, he probably went to find a Mrs. Hoppy. Rabbits are like that.”

“That’s what Step Stan said.” She sighs a little.

Something about this lightens Steve’s impression of Step Stan. By all accounts the guy is genuinely fond of Grace. A ruthless businessman, but good with Grace.

She wraps the rest of her bagel up in the paper towels and leans forward, unzipping her pack and placing it inside carefully, so it doesn’t smash between books.

“Maybe you could get another rabbit,” he suggests. They’re too close to the school, and he doesn’t want this time with her to end so soon. He takes a turn around the block. She doesn’t comment on it.

“Mommy says no more bunnies, because Mr. Hoppy got out of his cage, and Daddy can’t have pets at his apartment.”

“Well, these things tend to work out, Grace.” Steve says, seriously. “Every kid should have a pet, right?” He winks.

Her smile is toothy and adorable. She has Danny’s smile. His heart melts into a puddle.

He pulls the truck up in front of the school, gets out, and goes around to open her door. He helps her down, placing the backpack on her. The thing feels like it has a ton of bricks in it. It can’t be good for a little kid to carry that much weight around on her back. He’ll have to mention it to Danny.

She hugs him around the waist.

“Thank you, Step Steve.”

He swallows around the lump in his throat and hugs back. “You have a good day, sweetie.”

Then she’s skipping up the stairs, waving to friends and disappearing through the doors. Okay. He can do this. This is easy.

His phone vibrates and he answers it, walking back around to his side of the truck.

“Hey, Kono.”

“Where are you, boss?”

“I had to drop Grace off at school.”

There’s a weighted pause, in which he can all but hear her smirking knowingly at the phone in her hand, or giving a wink-wink-nudge to Chin beside her. He and Danny haven’t exactly announced their budding new relationship to Chin and Kono yet. Rachel and Grace they’ve told. Chin and Kono were next on the list, even though it seems redundant to tell them what they’ve apparently already known.

“We got some info on the case,” Kono says.

“Good work. I’ll be in a little late. I’ve got to go pick some stuff up. Can it wait?”

“Yeah, yeah. No problem.”

They hang up.

There’s a little hardware store a few blocks away. He has a big grassy back yard with plenty of room for a rabbit hutch. Next time they have Grace for a weekend they can take a trip to the pet store.

/end


End file.
